Agrigento
Ten years ago I went to Agrigento
in southern Sicily to paint the wonderful ruined Greek temples that
are set along a limestone ridge beside the remains of the old city wall.
There are groves of almonds and
olives on one side and on the other the landscape sweeps away towards
the sea some miles away to the south.
The temple site was a few miles down the hillside from the modern city,
so at the end of each day I returned to the hotel with my equipment
after a long walk uphill in the heat .
The old Sicilian woman who ran the hotel spent her day at the desk in
reception and each evening when I returned she would insist on seeing
my work and shower me with extravagant praise. After a couple of days
she asked if I would draw her. No amount of polite refusal would satisfy
her and after three or four days of her pleading , I eventually agreed.
I sat down and was given coffee while people appeared from nowhere to
watch, hotel staff, relatives, residents. Over the next half hour she
was taken repeatedly to her room off the reception area to have her
hair done, her make up applied, and to try on various outfits and items
of jewellery which were commented on by the growing number of onlookers.
Eventually she was deemed to be ready for her portrait and I was told
that I could begin.
The strength of my work is that I can paint what I see, but this
is also its limitation and in this particular situation, drawing exactly
what I saw was not a good idea. After twenty minutes or so I had finished
and turned the drawing round for the approval of the old woman and the
onlookers.
There was a moment of silence while they registered the image and then
a collective gasp of shock. I had done the worst thing I could have
done and drawn the woman as I saw her, wrinkles, double chins and all.
Politely the drawing was returned and I was persuaded that the nose
was not quite that big, the chins not that many, I had to completely
remodel the hair. It took another half hour to make the alterations
but eventually I was able to go to my room.
A few days later I saw my drawing poking out of one of the cleaner's
pockets. After that the old woman said good evening as I returned to
the hotel after a days work, but showed no more interest in the paintings.
|